Project Reason is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The foundation draws on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.
Wouldn’t natural selection favor optimism? It keeps you going, striving, searching, doing. It would confer a distinct survival advantage, it seems to me.
This, along with other failures of perception and sober consideration, seems potentially rather dangerous to me, also rather egocentric ... and frankly odd. This seems like the source of the strange, world view altering reaction to personal tragedy, as if you really did think it couldn’t happen to you even though it (whatever unfortunate fate “it” may be) is clearly part of life as a human being.
As for the benefits of being optimistic rather than realistic, I expect that’s generally the case, at least to a point, but I’d argue it’s a lot healthier/more psychologically robust to be copacetic with reality as-is, or at least to make that your sincere goal and genuine desire. I know it works for me. It’s one thing to do what you can to tilt the odds, quite another to presume they’re already so tilted. It seems clear to me the former is far more functional than the latter.
I don’t think that optimism has to imply that the odds are tilted in my favor vs. others, or that nothing bad can happen to me. It can be more rooted in a view of the world that, if you apply yourself and never give up, good things are more likely to happen. In other words, the nature of reality is such that if you are generally positive in outlook, it’s more likely that something positive will occur. You reap what you sow. I don’t think that is necessarily egocentric - it’s just an approach to life that, on the whole, yields good results. And since it yields such results more often than not, it’s favored by natural selection.
I don’t think that optimism has to imply that the odds are tilted in my favor vs. others, or that nothing bad can happen to me. It can be more rooted in a view of the world that, if you apply yourself and never give up, good things are more likely to happen. In other words, the nature of reality is such that if you are generally positive in outlook, it’s more likely that something positive will occur. You reap what you sow. I don’t think that is necessarily egocentric - it’s just an approach to life that, on the whole, yields good results. And since it yields such results more often than not, it’s favored by natural selection.
I agree.
But that version of optimism doesn’t match up very well with the Sharon version, which is the version in question here ... eh?
I don’t think that optimism has to imply that the odds are tilted in my favor vs. others, or that nothing bad can happen to me. It can be more rooted in a view of the world that, if you apply yourself and never give up, good things are more likely to happen. In other words, the nature of reality is such that if you are generally positive in outlook, it’s more likely that something positive will occur. You reap what you sow. I don’t think that is necessarily egocentric - it’s just an approach to life that, on the whole, yields good results. And since it yields such results more often than not, it’s favored by natural selection.
I agree.
But that version of optimism doesn’t match up very well with the Sharon version, which is the version in question here ... eh?
I guess it’s all on a sliding scale. The idea that “if I work hard I can achieve the best possible results” is realistic, while obviously everyone thinking that they can actually win a gold medal in the same event at the same Olympics is delusional. But it still is all rooted in a view of the world in which hard, sustained effort is rewarded.
I don’t think that optimism has to imply that the odds are tilted in my favor vs. others, or that nothing bad can happen to me. It can be more rooted in a view of the world that, if you apply yourself and never give up, good things are more likely to happen. In other words, the nature of reality is such that if you are generally positive in outlook, it’s more likely that something positive will occur. You reap what you sow. I don’t think that is necessarily egocentric - it’s just an approach to life that, on the whole, yields good results. And since it yields such results more often than not, it’s favored by natural selection.
I agree.
But that version of optimism doesn’t match up very well with the Sharon version, which is the version in question here ... eh?
I guess it’s all on a sliding scale. The idea that “if I work hard I can achieve the best possible results” is realistic, while obviously everyone thinking that they can actually win a gold medal in the same event at the same Olympics is delusional. But it still is all rooted in a view of the world in which hard, sustained effort is rewarded.
Here man. Check out her TED Talk (I forgot that wasn’t included in the link or directly accessible in the article ... my bad).
I think optimism and pessimism are qualitatively important survival mechanisms, and elements of both could by favored by natural selection.
That’s probably true. Optimism about one’s future is a positive. Keeps you going. Pessimism about someone who has screwed you before is a positive. Keeps you from being screwed again. For example.
I think optimism and pessimism are qualitatively important survival mechanisms, and elements of both could by favored by natural selection.
That’s probably true. Optimism about one’s future is a positive. Keeps you going. Pessimism about someone who has screwed you before is a positive. Keeps you from being screwed again. For example.
I think what Sharot is talking about is precisely why religious worldviews are so pervasive and frankly why religion is, in many ways, good for the world. Harris and Hitchens saw 9/11 and they saw, in a big way, how religious delusion (Islamic optimism?) can destroy. But what they take for granted are the millions of small ways - and even big ways - that unwielding optimism and religious delusion (as they would call it) yield positive results. People have taken great risks and done amazing feats against all odds. And I think perhaps the argument could be made that they accomplished those things with excessive, or even delusional, optimism (and in many cases, religious delusional optimism).
The skeptic scoffs at the believer who trusts that God is with them in their endeavors, but that trust (whether placed in a real or imaginary deity) often gets them from point A to point B. For Al Qaeda, it got them to NY to destroy the WTC and thousands (millions really) of lives; for John Winthrop and the Puritans, it got them to Massachusetts to lay the foundation of American government and culture; for survivors of the Holocaust, it got them through extreme emotional and physical pain and agony.
For many here on the forum, I think, trust in their knowledge of the world and themselves is enough. For billions of others, that isn’t enough. I think that’s the biggest obstacle facing the aggressive anti-religionists of today - they offer nothing in place of religious belief and optimism. In fact, I think the point at which people really do face the world head on is when religious belief and so-called delusional thinking often kick in (not for everyone of course). The atheist can give a great motivational speech about the power of the human will and spirit to accomplish great tasks without the need for God, and for a short time a person is inspired to believe in themselves that way. Then they go out into the world and face tough decisions, see their own frailty and weaknesses, and start grasping for ways to cope with the situation. Some turn to religion, some to self-help, some to drugs, some to depression and anxiety, some make it through and feel better about themselves, some don’t and feel worse, etc. etc.
The skeptic scoffs at the believer who trusts that God is with them in their endeavors, but that trust (whether placed in a real or imaginary deity) often gets them from point A to point B. For Al Qaeda, it got them to NY to destroy the WTC and thousands (millions really) of lives; for John Winthrop and the Puritans, it got them to Massachusetts to lay the foundation of American government and culture; for survivors of the Holocaust, it got them through extreme emotional and physical pain and agony.
.
“it” in your narrative = psychological relief. People construing ” it” as god make them what? What does “that” make religion and its followers when all the evidence is against them? How should people who follow the preponderance respond?
I was much more pessimistic when I was a theist. But, strangely, I was less inclined to do anything to make things better. I did not feel empowered and figured that it was up to god and that he would set things to rights in the end. That sort of fatalism pervades most religions. I mean, even Buddhism as practised in countries like Thailand (really the only country I know well where it is the dominant religion) people are fatalistic and talk about having done something bad in a former life and that’s why they are not healthy, wealthy or successful in this life. And if they are successful they care less about the poor and downtrodden because obviously they’ve accumulated bad karma and need to suffer in their current life and if they do well they get a better ride next time. For religion to make you optimistic you have to believe it and to believe it… Well, let’s just say I can’t do the cog-dis any more.
Breathing the fresh air of atheism in the clear light of reason, and taking responsibility for one’s own life and making things better for others now, in this life, is, I think, the healthiest, most balanced and sane approach. It engenders neither undue pessimism nor optimism but motivates us to get good things done now because we know that once we are dead our histories are complete. No hope of fixing things up after that - you remain as you were in life.
CLAY: ...for survivors of the Holocaust, it got them through extreme emotional and physical pain and agony.
Did it? I seem to remember reading how, as the gas pellets fell down the chute and onto the floor of the chamber then began to vaporize, those out side could here victims pleading “Where is God? Where are you God?”. Many of those who did survive the camps became atheists. I think it was in somer of Primo Levi’s writing that I read about this. He was a Jew who survived Auswitch. He dioed an atheist. I’ll have a look and post a reference if I can find the passage I’m thinking of. Anyway, religion doesn’t get you through horrors like that. Only luck got most survivors through. The other 6 million died.
I think what Sharot is talking about is precisely why religious worldviews are so pervasive and frankly why religion is, in many ways, good for the world.
Right ... you can ask any believer heading to church on Sunday (or Saturday) morning, and they’ll tell you I know it’s all specious, but I go for my health.
Uh huh.
Clay - 25 June 2012 07:37 PM
Harris and Hitchens saw 9/11 and they saw, in a big way, how religious delusion (Islamic optimism?) can destroy. But what they take for granted are the millions of small ways - and even big ways - that unwielding optimism and religious delusion (as they would call it) yield positive results. People have taken great risks and done amazing feats against all odds. And I think perhaps the argument could be made that they accomplished those things with excessive, or even delusional, optimism (and in many cases, religious delusional optimism).
You might have a point if this were dependent upon religious delusion, but it’s not. You’re making a distinction that doesn’t exist and running a rhetorical marathon with it.
Clay - 25 June 2012 07:37 PM
The skeptic scoffs at the believer who trusts that God is with them in their endeavors, but that trust (whether placed in a real or imaginary deity) often gets them from point A to point B.
Some do, but most have too little interest to scoff when believers aren’t trying to impose their “trust” upon everyone else.
Clay - 25 June 2012 07:37 PM
For Al Qaeda, it got them to NY to destroy the WTC and thousands (millions really) of lives; for John Winthrop and the Puritans, it got them to Massachusetts to lay the foundation of American government and culture; for survivors of the Holocaust, it got them through extreme emotional and physical pain and agony.
Yeah, because we don’t see colonies or civilizations develop that aren’t all about religious devotion.
Clay - 25 June 2012 07:37 PM
For many here on the forum, I think, trust in their knowledge of the world and themselves is enough. For billions of others, that isn’t enough.
Yup ... they’re too special, far too impōtant for such a mundane cosmos.
I agree that this is a huge, critical aspect of the equation—the disconnect between believers and the more conscientious skeptics.
Clay - 25 June 2012 07:37 PM
I think that’s the biggest obstacle facing the aggressive anti-religionists of today - they offer nothing in place of religious belief and optimism.
Yup. I think there’s a lot of merit to that idea as well (though “aggressive” usually just means “doesn’t shut up and take the buelshite 24/7”). Skepticism/intellectual responsibility and integrity only offer the cosmos ... nothing anywhere near neato or special enough for a lot of believers. That seems to be changing though.
Clay - 25 June 2012 07:37 PM
In fact, I think the point at which people really do face the world head on is when religious belief and so-called delusional thinking often kick in (not for everyone of course).
Right again ... facing the world isn’t really quite an option. Many run for shelter, but few find any—turns out nature doesn’t really consider us the end all be all to its own existence. Then the illusion of shelter works as a pacifier, and the natural, normal social behavior of a very smart, social species like us gets turned into an accessory to the delusion—our nature isn’t good enough (even though that’s all that’s really going on), that’s just mundane and there’s no clear indication of how profoundly special and impōtant we are in actual nature, so many feel the need to correct for that. Some seek shelter for good and certainly more than understandable reasons (life can be hard on people for sure) but for most it’s just our natural communal inclinations asserting themselves drawing us to well established communities, and for many it’s also largely about the “optimism”/sense of self-impōtance and proactive perceptual auto-exceptionalism Sharot is on to here. Creating an omnipotent Ultimate Authority to which we can defer such comical arrogance takes care of the radical self-aggrandizement—it can even be considered humility once the Blue Pill has taken full effect ... and been somewhat enhanced by personal investment and perceptual manipulation.
Clay - 25 June 2012 07:37 PM
The atheist can give a great motivational speech about the power of the human will and spirit to accomplish great tasks without the need for God, and for a short time a person is inspired to believe in themselves that way. Then they go out into the world and face tough decisions, see their own frailty and weaknesses, and start grasping for ways to cope with the situation. Some turn to religion, some to self-help, some to drugs, some to depression and anxiety, some make it through and feel better about themselves, some don’t and feel worse, etc. etc.
And you’re right once again. Unfortunately we took a bad turn at some long past point in our social development, and invested heavily, almost entirely in the God Delusion, so we’ve had very few communities based upon sound, healthy foundations within which to be who we are, basically. We’re a highly social species, and Religion (reified here) has monopolized our communities—even to a significant extent our concept of community—and left those who are either unwilling to take the Blue Pill or have an immunity to its effects, with very little of who we really are with which to work.
It’s our own fault of course, and Religion is really just a generally negative part of our nature tripping us up because we haven’t gotten a handle on it, but again, that seems to be changing (there is no Religion, the entity—the Thing Unto Itself that exists outside of the human mind—just religion, the major aspect of the Dark Side of human nature).
Yup, yup, yup and yup to all of that Skep. Wouldn’t personally have had the energy to go into such detail. One gets tired. But you are great. You are an artist. a sculptor; you can shape Clay. You have mucho stamina.
Has anyone ever told you that you are loved? Yes, of course they have. Well, I’m gonna tell you again anyway.
I just have a thing about good minds - male or female. I love good minds. Minds have no gender.
Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Rob) - 26 June 2012 06:52 AM
Yup, yup, yup and yup to all of that Skep. Wouldn’t personally have had the energy to go into such detail. One gets tired. But you are great. You are an artist. a sculptor; you can shape Clay. You have mucho stamina.
Has anyone ever told you that you are loved? Yes, of course they have. Well, I’m gonna tell you again anyway.
I just have a thing about good minds - male or female. I love good minds. Minds have no gender.
Cheers from Mario’s bête noire, the Aussie fag.
I’ll second that.
There seems to be a threshhold between optimism and realism. We recognize other qualities in conjunction with optimism that keep us more grounded in reality, even if we suppress it to the unconcious. For example, all the athletes in a race must know at some level that not everyone will win. Then there’s optimism’s afterlife or optimism recycled (ie, learn from your mistakes, try and try again, pick yourself up and dust yourself off, etc) when the realism of failure kicks in. It seems to me to be synonymous with hope and expectation as an ongoing motivational process.
Optimism is great up to a certain point. Believing in yourself and all that is good for motivation, as long as it is tempered with some realism. I am sure that most Olympic athletes do not go to the Olympics fully expecting to win a medal, unless they are ranked very highly going in. For most, the experience of representing the country and having the opportunity to compete against the world’s best is enough.
Optimism can be taken way too far in many circumstances. For one example, take health and medicine. I had a former boss of mine who was diagnosed with liver cancer. Even with a successful transplant, doctors gave him approximately a 15% chance to live. He and his family were extremely positive and optimistic, but we in my opinion too much so. I cannot imagine exactly what they were going through, but there were a lot of words being thrown around like “impossible is nothing”, “fighting the fight, beating the odds”, and so on. His wife really, truly believed that he would survive and thrive, I mean she was FULLY bought in. He died and she was absolutely devastated, in my opinion more so than if their optimism had been laced with a touch of realism. It was terrible, but nobody in his family accepted the very possibility of defeat, so when it happened the emotional destruction was more severe than maybe it should have been. No matter what, it’s tragic, but what if they had accepted the odds while still fighting as hard as possible. Unfortunately, I see this kind of optimism bias no matter what the stats say. You can sometimes beats the odds, but not in the long run.
I am a positive person but I would like to think that I consider all of the facts before making announcements about the surety of something happening. Life is capricious and variable. Sometimes you have to just roll with the punches.
In some of the early research on this stuff when it was just refered to as the “sadder but wiser” explanation for depression, they actually noted that people who were depressed or pessimistic tended to be more accurate when learning the odds they would win in a card game in which the experimenters varied the odds.
So if accuracy of odds were all that mattered you would have to go with the depressive attributions. But if you know the research then your sense of accuracy would also revolve around whether or not you felt depression and pessmism were things that you were striving for
In fact, economists have suggested that optimism was a root cause of the financial downfall of 2008. The optimism bias was not only blurring the vision of the private sector, but also of government officials, rating agencies and financial analysts who constantly expected the market to go up and up.
There’s a lot of blame to go around for the economic downturn, but I think the little guy had some of the responsibility. People were taking on all kinds of home loans they had little real hope of paying off. Everyone has a story like this from someone they know. The thinking was, “Lots of other people are signing on for a variable rate mortgage; it probably won’t go up too high.” Or, “The bank approved my loan; that means it’s a reasonable risk.” I’ve seen financial and personal optimism destroy my sister’s finances. She has often said, literally, “Things are bound to change for the better.”
Yes, I know there were lots of other reasons, and downright dishonestly and greed in parts of the financial industry, but I do see the author’s point about misplaced optimism.
I think you can be optimistic without being delusional. For one, certain people do have a consistent string of positive experiences and enjoy situational factors that make further experiences likely.
But more importantly, one can experience personal growth. I can develop the capacity to enjoy and appreciate a wider spectrum of experiences. I can gain a nuanced understanding of how my brain evaluates particular situations. I can deliberately train my attention to focus on positive aspects of unpredictable future developments and widen my definition of what counts for success.
I guess what I need to know is whether or not its possible to be delusional about ones own reflective well being? Can a firsthand state of experience misrepresent itself? I don’t think so.
I think optimism is built into our psychological immune system, to help us bounce back from emotional traumas. I notice this tendency (even in its slightest form) intermittently displayed, along with it’s opposite of course, by everyone I know and meet, including negative people (though not very often). Imagine if we always saw things and called things for what they are, and not better or worse. Would we be able to get to where we are now? I don’t think so. Or is that just my pessimism bias talking?
I think optimism is built into our psychological immune system, to help us bounce back from emotional trauma. I notice this tendency (even in its slightest form) in everyone, including negative people, though not very often. Imagine if we always saw things and called things for what they are. Would we be able to get to where we are now? I don’t think so. Or is that just my pessimism bias talking?
Welcome to the forum. You may want to go to the Introduction section and introduce yourself (your choice).
I don’t really agree with you here. Why should we not call things as they are? There is always room for optimism, just not to the point that it becomes delusional (as pointed out by Brick). When making daily decisions or assessing situations, we already come into it with a whole host of prejudices and biases. Let’s not make it even more difficult by assigning inaccurate odds to the more desirable outcome.
In fact, economists have suggested that optimism was a root cause of the financial downfall of 2008. The optimism bias was not only blurring the vision of the private sector, but also of government officials, rating agencies and financial analysts who constantly expected the market to go up and up.
There’s a lot of blame to go around for the economic downturn, but I think the little guy had some of the responsibility. People were taking on all kinds of home loans they had little real hope of paying off. Everyone has a story like this from someone they know. The thinking was, “Lots of other people are signing on for a variable rate mortgage; it probably won’t go up too high.” Or, “The bank approved my loan; that means it’s a reasonable risk.” I’ve seen financial and personal optimism destroy my sister’s finances. She has often said, literally, “Things are bound to change for the better.”
Yes, I know there were lots of other reasons, and downright dishonestly and greed in parts of the financial industry, but I do see the author’s point about misplaced optimism.
I would agree, and I would actually add that when we blame the “little guy” we shouldn’t restrict that to the marginal borrowers who took advantage of ARMs. Plenty of other people who had “good credit” and would have been able to afford a home under any circumstances treated the housing market as a get-rich scheme. I think the “flippers” played a big role in pushing housing prices higher and higher at ridiculous rates.
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